Study site description: Zeuss Koutine, Tunisia

Table of Contents

1. Responsible IP partner
2. General Information
3. Bio-physical description
   1. Climate
   2. Geomorphology
   3. Groundwater
   4. Soils
   5. Vegetation
   6. Water harvesting
   7. Sand dune fixation
   8. Rangeland management
4. Socio-economic description
5. Institutional and political setting
6. Relevant end-users / stakeholder groups
7. Past and on-going projects

Sand dune fixation

The sand dune fixation techniques include the following.

• Mechanic fixation: The first step in sand fixation. It consists of creating obstacles against prevailing winds in order to decrease its speed and to enhance sand accumulation in the form of artificial dunes. Two materials have been used: fibrocement plaques which were gradually replaced by dry date palms (Khatteli, 1996).
• Squaring: This technique consists of the installation of a network of palisades laid out in chess-board (Khatteli, 1996).
• Afforestation and pastoral improvement: This operation consists of fixing the moving sand dunes by plantations once the mechanical stabilization is completed. Various forest species, used for combating sand encroachment in the study area are divided into two groups (Mekrazi, 2003):
  • Introduced species include: Eucalyptus, Acacia cyanophylla, Acacia ligulata, Prosopis will juliflora, Parkinsonia, Pine of alep, Acacia horrida, Acacia tortillis, Acacia cyclopis, Casuarina.
  • Local species are: Calligomaum azel, Lycium arabicuim, Atripex halimus, Tamarix